CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Saint Petersburg State University 2016 ВЕСТНИК САНКТ-ПЕТЕРБУРГСКОГО УНИВЕРСИТЕТА. ИСТОРИЯ Вып. 4 ИСТОРИОГРАФИЯ, ИСТОЧНИКОВЕДЕНИЕ И МЕТОДЫ ИСТОРИЧЕСКОГО ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ ШКОЛА И. Я. ФРОЯНОВА (К 80-ЛЕТИЮ УЧЕНОГО) UDC 93/94 A. Yu. Dvornichenko THE PLACE OF THE KIEVAN RUS IN HISTORY The article examines an important and urgent issue: place of Kievan Rus in history. ‘Kievan Rus’ is a conventional name for the first centuries of the East Slavic history (9th–13th centuries), which after the collapse of the USSR has been a bone of contention between scientists from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Whose history? It is the basis of what sort of state? What is its nature? These and many other questions still remain unanswered. Considering historiographical and historical discourses, the author proposes a solution to this problem, the option most appropriate to historical reality and reconciling all parties. Refs 60. Keywords: Kievan Rus, historiography, township (city-state), community and Church, ‘old Russian nationality’, ‘East Slavic antiquity’. DOI: 10.21638/11701/spbu02.2016.401 А. Ю. Дворниченко МЕСТО КИЕВСКОЙ РУСИ В ИСТОРИИ В статье рассматривается важная и актуальная проблема: место Киевской Руси в истории. «Киевская Русь» — это условное название восточнославянской истории в течение первых ее веков (IX–XIII век), которая после краха СССР была яблоком раздора между учеными из Рос- сии, Украины и Белоруссии. Чья история? Основа какого из государств? Каков ее характер? Эти и много других вопросов все еще остаются без ответа. Рассматривая историографические и исторические дискурсы, автор предлагает решение этой проблемы, выбор, наиболее соответ- ствующий исторической действительности и примиряющий все стороны. Библиогр. 60 назв. Ключевые слова: Киевская Русь, историография, города (город-государство), община и церковь, «народность», «восточнославянская античность». Dvornichenko Andrey Yurievich — Doctor of History, Professor, St. Petersburg State University, Institute of History, 7–9, Universitetskaya nab., St. Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation; [email protected] Дворниченко Андрей Юрьевич — доктор исторических наук, профессор, Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет, Институт истории, Российская Федерация, 199034, Санкт-Петербург, Университетская наб., 7–9; [email protected] © Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет, 2016 DOI: 10.21638/11701/spbu02.2016.401 5 «Кстати, о Киевской Руси. Кажется, значение ее доселе никем еще не было понято». Ю. Ф. Самарин «О мненияx ‘Современника’, исторических и литературных» ‘By the way, about Kievan Rus. It seems, up to now nobody understand its significance’. Iu. F. Samarin ‘On Opinions of the ‘Contemporary’, historical and literary’ This problem seems to be beyond the circle of ‘real scholarly questions’. But without solving such general problems we could not go forward in studying particular ones. The period of the so called ‘Kievan Rus’ is very important in the common history of the three contemporary states: Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. By the way, I am sure, that a correct form is just ‘Rus’, because term ‘Russia’ appeared only at the end of the 15th century. ‘Kievan Rus’ is an artificial scholarly term for the first centuries of the history of the east Slavs, approximately from 9th (or 8th) to the beginning of 13th centuries. Historians began to comprehend this period as integral, united, important and differ from the oth- ers periods only at the beginning of the 20th century. Even in the classical work written by the famous Ukrainian historian M. S. Hrushevsky, ‘Kievan Rus’ is only part of the history of the so-called ‘Ukraine-Rus’. Perhaps, no sooner than A. Ie. Presnyakov (St. Petersburg University) in his famous works (‘The Law of Princes in Old Rus’ and ‘Lectures on Rus- sian History’) finally made ‘Kievan Rus’ the individual object of scientific analysis. Such approach was developed in Soviet historiography, which had great enthusiasm for this subject. It was a long hard way from the ‘Kievan Rus’, written by B. D. Grekov and ‘Old Rus’ by V. V. Mavrodin to the ‘Kievan Rus and Old Russian Principalities’ of B. A. Rybakov, and the bestseller, which had been prepared by I. Ia. Froianov. Among the emigré writers, three remarkable volumes were devoted to this theme by G. Vernadsky. I mentioned only five names, but we have dozens of names! I only want to show that once upon a time ‘Kievan Rus’ had been an object of great interest. And one can also see the Soviet approach to this period in an article written by the well-known historian M. N. Tihomirov. It’s interesting that it was first published in Kiev in the Ukrainian language and only after the death of the author was it translated into Russian. He is sure of the existence of the ‘Kievan State’, which was one of the biggest states in medieval Europe [Tihomirov M. N. 1975, p. 22]. He writes about the high level of handi- crafts, about feudal relations and class struggle and the high level of culture, which reflects the tastes of feudal lords. And then he admired the role of the Rus in international affairs even during the period of ‘feudal division’. Such an approach dominated Soviet historiog- raphy before the works of I. Ya. Froianov. But long before this time ‘Kievan Rus’ appeared at the centre of the struggle between Russian and Ukrainian historians. Russian historians from the time of N. M. Karamzin presumed, albeit unconsciously, that ‘Kievan Rus’ was just the first stage of Russian his- tory. The truth is that the Russian historians did not see the Ukraine and its history in 6 Вестник СПбГУ. История. 2016. Вып. 4 the whole: all regions from Dnepr to Warsaw called West Russia. Only the terrible Polish rebellion of 1830 could compel Russians to notice as Poland as Ukraine. The question was very simple: who will be owner of these territories — Poland or Russian Empire? And now an interpretation of the ‘Kievan Rus’ as a ‘cradle of Russian nation’ was the foundation for the claims from the side of Russia [Miller А. 2013, p. 297]. In the 1850s we can see discussion in the Slavophile magazine Russkaia beseda between the Russian his- torian M. P. Pogodin and the philologist, former rector of Kievan Unuversity M. A. Maksi- movich. According to Pogodin’s opinion, the population of ‘Kievan Rus’ were Russians. Under the influence of Mongol invasion they changed their territory and went to the North-Eastern Rus and so just this region in the form of Susdalia and then in the form of the Great Duke of Moscow became the heir of ‘Kievan Rus’. The territory left behind was occupied with the migrants from the West Ukraine [Miller А. I. 2000, p. 69–71]. A. P. Tolochko noticed that Pogodin factually played on the part of Ukrainians, be- cause Maksimovich was not the admirer of separate and independent history of Ukraine. Being the philologist, he maintained the idea of the close relationship between the two languages [Tolochko А. P. 2012, p. 222, 225]. In the whole both scholars thought primarily about nationality and language. This approach was continued by the prominent historian N. I. Kostomarov. His na- tionalism had a bright ethological character: he postulated two Russian nationalities or, later, six [Rubinshtejn N. L. 2008, p. 487–491]. He did not speak about a state in ‘Kievan Rus’. On his opinion, Rus had only the form of federation, in this political mass one can find the shoots of federation, monarchy and republic [Kostomarov N. I. 1994, p. 80; Kos- tomarov N. I. 1994, p. 167]. Discussion renewed under the new, special circumstances of the 1880s. This was a complex period for the development of nationalism in Russian Empire. Under the press of autocracy nobody wanted to discuss these problems. The silence was broken by the tal- ented philologist and the man of right-leaning convictions A. I. Sobolevskj. He published an article under characteristic title: ‘How Did the Population of Kiev in the 14th and 15th Centuries Speak?’ [Sobolevsky A. I. 1888, pp. 215–218] He corrected the conception of Pogodin: the population of ‘Kievan Rus’ did not migrate to Susdalia, but the culture of this population had been destroyed [Sobolevsky A. I. 1980, p. 40]. As A. P. Tolochko noticed, the Ukrainian historians of the school of V. B. Antonovich answered simply and naively. Antonovich himself drew one the unbroken history of Kiev from the 14th to the 16th centuries [Antonovich V. B. 1885, pp. 221–264]. His pupils studied the history of the different Old Russian lands from ancient times until the 14th and 15th centuries, and also showed the unbroken development in these lands [Tolochko А. P. 2012, pp. 233–4]. But the creator of the ‘long Ukrainian history’ was M. S. Hrushevsky. He began this history from the settling of the Slavs and from the creation of the first state. On his opinion, the Kievan state was the result of the creative activity of the Ukrainian people. Russians appeared later as the result of a mix between Slavs and Finno-Ugric tribes on the Volga and Oka rivers. Russians borrowed the law and culture of the ‘Kievan Rus’ ap- proximately so just as they had taken the culture of Byzantium [Hrushevsky M. S. 1991, pp. 76–7]. It’s very important for the aims of this article to stress that it was this great Ukrainian historian who finally created the state ‘Kievan Rus’. But I shall return to this theme shortly. Вестник СПбГУ. История. 2016. Вып. 4 7 After the works of Hrushevskiy the arguments went round the problem of the na- tional character of the ‘Kievan state’. And these discussions became more bitter than they had been, because the state is very valuable thing and everybody wants to have one as the beginning of their history. These discussions continued among the emigrés.